Digitalization in the machine industry has wide appeal among IoT experts

At the turn of the month, a group of over 70 software developers will gather at Glaston’s premises in Tampere, Finland, to compete in the world’s first glass industry hackathon. The plan for the hackathon is to have startups and application developers try to crack a predetermined challenge within a given period of time.

A total of 26 teams will participate. Twenty of them come from software-focused companies and startups. The remaining six will be teams of technical area students and researchers from Tampere University of Technology and Tampere Universityof Applied Sciences. 



The goal of this Hack the Glass event is to explore and find new glass processing technology solutions and services to create innovative business ideas as well as to develop competitive products and services that embrace the opportunities of digitalization. The announcement of the competition raised a lot of interest, with over 70 participants on 26 teams.



“That the event raised so much awareness shows this subject to be important and that the new ways of working are producing results. Digitalization is inevitably changing the business models of technology companies. Even the traditional machine industry is being forced to embrace this change. We are a frontrunner in our industry and also want to promote our technological leadership by taking advantage of digitalization to create new possibilities,” says Sasu Koivumäki, head of Glaston’s Machines Business.



The 26 teams participating in the competition will be developing new applications in areas such as preventive maintenance, machine intelligence and data analytics. Each team will present and sell its ideas to a panel of judges on November 1, 2017 in a pitching event organized at the Kampusareena at Tampere University of Technology.

The winner of the competition will be announced on November 6, 2017 at the Smart Machines and Manufacturing (SMACC) gathering at Kampusareena, which brings together Finnish industrial manufacturing companies, stakeholders and opinion leaders.



“We are looking for new knowledge in the field of the industrial internet also from outside Glaston and want to find out how we can apply this expertise to the products and services of the machine industry. The Hackthon is an excellent opportunity to create new services and operating models,” says Kai Knuutila, head of Glaston’s digitalization services.



The Hack the Glass event is arranged in cooperation with the glass processing technology company Glaston Corporation, and with Business Tampere, Tampere University of Technology ja VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.